This Week in Tech
Encyclopedia
This Week in Tech–casually referred to as TWiT, and formerly known as Revenge of the Screen Savers–is the weekly flagship podcast
of the TWiT.tv network
. Hosted by Leo Laporte
and many other former TechTV
employees, it features roundtable discussions and debates surrounding current technology
news and reviews, with a particular focus on consumer electronics
and the Internet
. TWiT now broadcasts from the TWiT 'brickhouse' studios, as of the 25th July 2011. The brickhouse is based in Petaluma, California
, USA, a few blocks away from the 'TWiT cottage', which they broadcast from for over 6 yearshttp://twit.tv/specials87.
). The show closes with each panelist giving a personal "plug" for their affiliated website or Twitter account.
, Becky Worley
, Steve Gibson, Xeni Jardin
, Patrick Norton
, Wil Harris
, Robert Heron, Kevin Rose
, David Prager
, Alex Lindsay
, Tom Merritt
, Owen Stone, Veronica Belmont
and Molly Wood
.
The show has had a number of famous guests, including Steve Wozniak
, Kevin Mitnick
, John Hodgman
, Lawrence Lessig
, artist Roger McGuinn
,
and Star Trek: The Next Generation
cast members LeVar Burton
(Geordi LaForge) and Wil Wheaton
(Wesley Crusher
).
in San Francisco.
Having published the show on his blog to an incredible public reception, Laporte decided to rename his original recording "episode 0" and turned the round table concept into a weekly downloadable audio file, or 'podcast
', featuring more cast members from his former TechTV program The Screen Savers. The first episode was posted on Monday, April 18, 2005 as "Revenge of The Screen Savers", but was temporarily renamed "Return of the [BEEP]" http://www.twit.tv/2 in response to a cease and desist
letter sent to Laporte by copyright-holder Comcast. In episode 2, Laporte announced a contest in which listeners could suggest a new name for the show. One listener suggested This Week in Geek, which inspired Laporte to create with the eventual name, This Week in Tech, or TWiT.
The weekly show was recorded with all of the hosts staying at their respective homes and talking via Voice over IP
(mostly using Skype
). Starting around episode 10, Norton began physically coming to Leo's Petaluma office during the taping. Upon Rose's announcement that he was moving to San Francisco, Laporte started to gather the panelists for public live tapings in the San Francisco area, most being videotaped and released as a video podcast download.
During the fall of 2005, several of the previously regular hosts started moving on to other projects, which changed the format of the show from being a show with a core group of hosts and occasional guests, into Laporte being the only regular host, inviting in a variety of different people from show to show. Around the same time, the people responsible for filming the shows, the Pixel Corps
and their leader, Alex Lindsay
became more involved with the show, many of whom also contributed.
At one point, TWiT was offered in the most formats of any podcast on the network. These included a standard 64 kbit/s MP3
, low-bandwidth 16 kbit/s MP3, Advanced Audio Coding
(AAC), and Ogg Vorbis versions. However, Leo Laporte announced the ending of the Ogg Vorbis version in August 2009 and finally the AAC and low bandwidth versions in early November 2009. The reasoning was the time and energy it took to encode all the versions of TWiT wasn't justified by the number of people choosing to listen to the show in those alternative formats. The show is usually posted every Monday morning at 1 a.m. Eastern to minimize the impact on the hosting company's servers.
Podcast Directory (where it records around 315,000 downloads a week), it has also won two Podcast Awards
, as both the "People's Choice" and as "Best Technology Podcast". This WEEK in TECH also made Time Magazine's
Top 10 Podcasts of 2006, ranked 9th.
It also won Podcast of the Year from the 2007 Weblog Awards.
attribution share-alike
noncommercial license
, and are distributed via direct download from the TWiT.tv website, from Apple
's iTunes Store
, or as a subscription using the Zune software 2.0 or higher. There is no download charge from either source.
The show is typically available in four formats: 64 kbit/s MP3
, 32 kbit/s MP3, 64 kbit/s AAC
. Occasionally, other bitrates are used for episodes produced in stereo
, however most episodes are monaural
. The files are available as direct downloads, with bandwidth provided by AOL
and Cachefly
. The occasional video episodes are available from Libsyn.
The sponsorship deal with America Online was announced on July 4, 2005, following the server demand that resulted from the release of iTunes 4.9's built-in podcasting directory. Since the new TWiT website was launched, the TWiT Torrent server initially preferred by Laporte has ceased operation. In several episodes, Laporte has noted that the distributed nature of BitTorrent makes it impossible to accurately gauge the popularity of the show, decreasing the likelihood of attracting advertisers. As of episode 174, TWiT is being hosted from AOL Radio.
.
Listeners have always been invited to support the network by means of an automatic PayPal subscription or one-time payment, however this granted access to an exclusive TWiT forum from episode 40 onwards. Listener funding has been used for the operational costs of the network including improvements to Laporte's recording studio and to purchase radio-quality microphones and digital audio-recording devices for the hosts. Financial compensation for podcast contributors comes from the networks sponsors and not from listener funding. Starting from episode 99, Audible
has offered a promotion on TWiT whereby listeners who sign up for the Audible service can choose one free audiobook. This promotion was initially open only to residents of the U.S but was later expanded, with some restrictions, to other countries.
Before recording started for this WEEK in TECH 268 on 3 October 2010, while discussing the sale of TechCrunch
to AOL
, Laporte mentioned that his network would “do three to four [million ]” in advertising revenue for 2010.
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
of the TWiT.tv network
TWiT.tv (network)
The TWiT Netcast Network, which is the operating trade name of TWiT LLC, is a podcast network run by technology broadcaster and author Leo Laporte. The network began operation in April 2005 with the launch of This Week in Tech. Security Now was the second podcast on the network, debuting in...
. Hosted by Leo Laporte
Leo Laporte
Léo Gordon Laporte is an Emmy Award winning, American technology broadcaster, author, and entrepreneur. A former resident of Providence, Rhode Island, he now lives in Petaluma, California with his wife Jennifer and two children, Abby and Henry....
and many other former TechTV
TechTV
TechTV was a 24-hour cable and satellite channel based in San Francisco featuring news and shows about computers, technology, and the Internet. In 2004, it merged with the G4 gaming channel which ultimately dissolved TechTV programming...
employees, it features roundtable discussions and debates surrounding current technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
news and reviews, with a particular focus on consumer electronics
Consumer electronics
Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...
and the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
. TWiT now broadcasts from the TWiT 'brickhouse' studios, as of the 25th July 2011. The brickhouse is based in Petaluma, California
Petaluma, California
Petaluma is a city in Sonoma County, California, in the United States. In the 2010 Census the population was 57,941.Located in Petaluma is the Rancho Petaluma Adobe, a National Historic Landmark. It was built beginning in 1836 by General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, then Commandant of the San...
, USA, a few blocks away from the 'TWiT cottage', which they broadcast from for over 6 yearshttp://twit.tv/specials87.
Format
Following the show's number, title, sponsors and theme tune, Leo Laporte typically begins an episode of TWiT by introducing the week's panelists one-by-one, allowing each panelist to discuss his or her recent projects or work. The main portion of the show consists of a round-table discussion and debate, pegged loosely to a selection of the week's major technology headlines. The format of the show encourages spontaneity and the conversation often diverges wildly from technology topics. This causes the length of each episode to vary, sometimes considerably, from show to show. Each episode typically features two or three commercial breaks, usually in the form of a "live read" from Leo that may include interaction with the panelists (e.g., Leo usually prompts guests for recommended audiobooks during spots for frequent advertiser Audible.comAudible.com
Audible.com is an Internet provider of spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming.Audible sells digital audiobooks, radio and TV programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers....
). The show closes with each panelist giving a personal "plug" for their affiliated website or Twitter account.
Panelists
Recurring guests on TWiT include John C. DvorakJohn C. Dvorak
John C. Dvorak is an American columnist and broadcaster in the areas of technology and computing. His writing extends back to the 1980s, when he was a mainstay of a variety of magazines. Dvorak is also the Vice-President of Mevio and well known for his work for Tech TV...
, Becky Worley
Becky Worley
Becky Worley is an American journalist and broadcaster. She is the tech contributor for Good Morning America on ABC, host and blogger for a web show on Yahoo! Tech.-Personal life:...
, Steve Gibson, Xeni Jardin
Xeni Jardin
Xeni Jardin is an American weblogger, digital media commentator, and tech culture journalist. She is known for her position as co-editor of the collaborative weblog Boing Boing, as a contributor to Wired magazine and Wired News, and as a correspondent for the National Public Radio show Day to Day...
, Patrick Norton
Patrick Norton
Patrick Norton is most commonly known as the former co-host and managing editor of The Screen Savers, an interactive television program on TechTV geared toward the technology enthusiast...
, Wil Harris
Wil Harris
Wil Harris is a British technology writer and entrepreneur based just outside of Oxford. He founded, with Justin Gayner, the video network ChannelFlip, former editor in chief of the bit-tech enthusiast website and has contributed to TrustedReviews. Harris resigned from his post at bit-tech at the...
, Robert Heron, Kevin Rose
Kevin Rose
Kevin Rose is an American Internet entrepreneur who co-founded Revision3, Digg, Pownce, and Milk...
, David Prager
David Prager
David Lawrence Prager is one of the co-founders and Vice President of Special Projects for Revision3. He has also worked for ZDTV, TechTV, and G4.-Early life:...
, Alex Lindsay
Alex Lindsay
For the Scottish footballer see Alex Lindsay Alex Ben Lindsay, founder of the Pixel Corps, has been involved in computer graphics and computer animation for nearly 20 years. Alex has extensive experience in digital production including print, real-time graphics, multimedia titles, forensic...
, Tom Merritt
Tom Merritt
Thomas Andrew "Tom" Merritt is a technology journalist and broadcaster who hosts a daily show on Leo Laporte's TWiT.tv Netcast Network Tech News Today...
, Owen Stone, Veronica Belmont
Veronica Belmont
Veronica Ann Belmont is the co-host of the Revision3 show Tekzilla alongside Patrick Norton, and the former host of the monthly PlayStation 3-based video on demand program Qore. Formerly she was the host for the Mahalo Daily podcast and a producer and associate editor for CNET Networks, Inc...
and Molly Wood
Molly Wood
Molly Kristin Wood is an executive editor at CNET.com and previously a writer for Associated Press, MacHome Journal magazine, and O'Reilly Media. Wood hosted the "Gadgettes"...
.
The show has had a number of famous guests, including Steve Wozniak
Steve Wozniak
Stephen Gary "Woz" Wozniak is an American computer engineer and programmer who founded Apple Computer, Co. with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne...
, Kevin Mitnick
Kevin Mitnick
Kevin David Mitnick is a computer security consultant, author, and hacker. In the late 20th century, he was convicted of various computer- and communications-related crimes. At the time of his arrest, he was the most-wanted computer criminal in the United States.-Personal life:Mitnick grew up in...
, John Hodgman
John Hodgman
John Kellogg Hodgman is an American author, actor, and humorist. In addition to his published written works, such as The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, and That Is All, he is known for his personification of a PC in contrast to Justin Long's personification of a Mac in...
, Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence "Larry" Lessig is an American academic and political activist. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications, and he has called for state-based activism to promote substantive...
, artist Roger McGuinn
Roger McGuinn
James Roger McGuinn is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for being the lead singer and lead guitarist on many of The Byrds' records...
,
and Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...
cast members LeVar Burton
LeVar Burton
Levardis Robert Martyn Burton, Jr. , professionally known as LeVar Burton, is an American actor, director, producer and author who first came to prominence portraying Kunta Kinte in the 1977 award-winning ABC television miniseries Roots, based on the novel by Alex Haley...
(Geordi LaForge) and Wil Wheaton
Wil Wheaton
Richard William "Wil" Wheaton III is an American actor and writer. As an actor, he is best known for his portrayals of Wesley Crusher on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gordie Lachance in the film Stand by Me and Joey Trotta in Toy Soldiers...
(Wesley Crusher
Wesley Crusher
Wesley Crusher is a character in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. He is Beverly Crusher's son and is portrayed by actor Wil Wheaton, the character was a regular for the first four seasons. Afterwards, the character appeared sporadically. The character also appeared briefly in...
).
History
The program began when Laporte recorded a one-off "roundtable" discussion between himself, Patrick Norton, Sarah Norton, Kevin Rose, David Prager, and Roger Chang at the 2005 Macworld ExpoMacworld Conference & Expo
Produced by Boston-based IDG World Expo, Macworld | iWorld is a trade-show with conference tracks dedicated to the Apple Macintosh platform. It is held annually in the United States, usually during the second week of January...
in San Francisco.
Having published the show on his blog to an incredible public reception, Laporte decided to rename his original recording "episode 0" and turned the round table concept into a weekly downloadable audio file, or 'podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
', featuring more cast members from his former TechTV program The Screen Savers. The first episode was posted on Monday, April 18, 2005 as "Revenge of The Screen Savers", but was temporarily renamed "Return of the [BEEP]" http://www.twit.tv/2 in response to a cease and desist
Cease and desist
A cease and desist is an order or request to halt an activity and not to take it up again later or else face legal action. The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization....
letter sent to Laporte by copyright-holder Comcast. In episode 2, Laporte announced a contest in which listeners could suggest a new name for the show. One listener suggested This Week in Geek, which inspired Laporte to create with the eventual name, This Week in Tech, or TWiT.
The weekly show was recorded with all of the hosts staying at their respective homes and talking via Voice over IP
Voice over IP
Voice over Internet Protocol is a family of technologies, methodologies, communication protocols, and transmission techniques for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol networks, such as the Internet...
(mostly using Skype
Skype
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...
). Starting around episode 10, Norton began physically coming to Leo's Petaluma office during the taping. Upon Rose's announcement that he was moving to San Francisco, Laporte started to gather the panelists for public live tapings in the San Francisco area, most being videotaped and released as a video podcast download.
During the fall of 2005, several of the previously regular hosts started moving on to other projects, which changed the format of the show from being a show with a core group of hosts and occasional guests, into Laporte being the only regular host, inviting in a variety of different people from show to show. Around the same time, the people responsible for filming the shows, the Pixel Corps
Pixel Corps
Pixel Corps is a training and production group composed of development personnel in digital media. It was founded by Alex Lindsay. The guild offers training as well as a means of communication between aspiring media professionals. They have done extensive work with Leo Laporte in producing the...
and their leader, Alex Lindsay
Alex Lindsay
For the Scottish footballer see Alex Lindsay Alex Ben Lindsay, founder of the Pixel Corps, has been involved in computer graphics and computer animation for nearly 20 years. Alex has extensive experience in digital production including print, real-time graphics, multimedia titles, forensic...
became more involved with the show, many of whom also contributed.
At one point, TWiT was offered in the most formats of any podcast on the network. These included a standard 64 kbit/s MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
, low-bandwidth 16 kbit/s MP3, Advanced Audio Coding
Advanced Audio Coding
Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
(AAC), and Ogg Vorbis versions. However, Leo Laporte announced the ending of the Ogg Vorbis version in August 2009 and finally the AAC and low bandwidth versions in early November 2009. The reasoning was the time and energy it took to encode all the versions of TWiT wasn't justified by the number of people choosing to listen to the show in those alternative formats. The show is usually posted every Monday morning at 1 a.m. Eastern to minimize the impact on the hosting company's servers.
Awards
As well as having been ranked #1 on Podcast Alley, Yahoo Podcasts, and the iTunesITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
Podcast Directory (where it records around 315,000 downloads a week), it has also won two Podcast Awards
Podcast Awards
The People's Choice Podcast Awards, better known as the Podcast Awards, are an annual set of awards given to the best podcasts as voted by the people...
, as both the "People's Choice" and as "Best Technology Podcast". This WEEK in TECH also made Time Magazine's
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
Top 10 Podcasts of 2006, ranked 9th.
It also won Podcast of the Year from the 2007 Weblog Awards.
Video
TWiT began as an audio podcast, although several episodes were filmed in the first few years of the show. Starting in 2008, the show was made available for live streaming in both audio and video formats. Since episode 215 in October 2009, the show has been available weekly as both an audio and video download.Distribution and licensing
All episodes are licensed under the Creative CommonsCreative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
attribution share-alike
Share-alike
Share-Alike is a descriptive term used in the Creative Commons project for copyright licenses which include certain copyleft provisions. The Share-Alike license comes in two varieties, CC-BY-SA and CC-BY-NC-SA.-Share-alike license types:...
noncommercial license
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons licenses are several copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. The licenses differ by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S...
, and are distributed via direct download from the TWiT.tv website, from Apple
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
's iTunes Store
ITunes Store
The iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple. Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, with over 200,000 items to purchase, it is, as of April 2008, the number-one music vendor in the United States...
, or as a subscription using the Zune software 2.0 or higher. There is no download charge from either source.
The show is typically available in four formats: 64 kbit/s MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
, 32 kbit/s MP3, 64 kbit/s AAC
Advanced Audio Coding
Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
. Occasionally, other bitrates are used for episodes produced in stereo
STEREO
STEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...
, however most episodes are monaural
Monaural
Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction is single-channel. Typically there is only one microphone, one loudspeaker, or channels are fed from a common signal path...
. The files are available as direct downloads, with bandwidth provided by AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
and Cachefly
CacheFly
CacheFly is a content delivery network provider based in Chicago, IL. CacheFly was the first company to offer CDN service that rely solely on TCP Anycast for routing, rather than DNS based global load balancing. Cachefly is notable for catering specifically to smaller companies, rather than large...
. The occasional video episodes are available from Libsyn.
The sponsorship deal with America Online was announced on July 4, 2005, following the server demand that resulted from the release of iTunes 4.9's built-in podcasting directory. Since the new TWiT website was launched, the TWiT Torrent server initially preferred by Laporte has ceased operation. In several episodes, Laporte has noted that the distributed nature of BitTorrent makes it impossible to accurately gauge the popularity of the show, decreasing the likelihood of attracting advertisers. As of episode 174, TWiT is being hosted from AOL Radio.
Funding
Laporte stated in episode 3 that the show would always remain free and without advertising. However, due to ongoing costs as a result of TWiT.tv's constant expansion, a roadmap for the introduction of podcast and web-based advertising was announced during episode 45 of This WEEK in TECH. On 5 September 2006, TWiT.tv officially became one of the first major advertising-supported podcast networks, sponsored initially by both Visa and DellDell
Dell, Inc. is an American multinational information technology corporation based in 1 Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest...
.
Listeners have always been invited to support the network by means of an automatic PayPal subscription or one-time payment, however this granted access to an exclusive TWiT forum from episode 40 onwards. Listener funding has been used for the operational costs of the network including improvements to Laporte's recording studio and to purchase radio-quality microphones and digital audio-recording devices for the hosts. Financial compensation for podcast contributors comes from the networks sponsors and not from listener funding. Starting from episode 99, Audible
Audible.com
Audible.com is an Internet provider of spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming.Audible sells digital audiobooks, radio and TV programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers....
has offered a promotion on TWiT whereby listeners who sign up for the Audible service can choose one free audiobook. This promotion was initially open only to residents of the U.S but was later expanded, with some restrictions, to other countries.
Before recording started for this WEEK in TECH 268 on 3 October 2010, while discussing the sale of TechCrunch
TechCrunch
TechCrunch is a web publication that offers technology news and analysis, as well as profiling of startup companies, products, and websites. It was founded by Michael Arrington in 2005, and was first published on June 11, 2005....
to AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
, Laporte mentioned that his network would “do three to four [million ]” in advertising revenue for 2010.